Welcome to AGPI

Defining Best Practice in the Provision of Guardianship Services to Overseas Students in Irish Secondary Schools

The Association of Guardianship Providers Ireland (AGPI) was set up in 2016 by a group of accredited education providers in Ireland who identified the need to regulate the placement and guardianship of international students, aged 11-18, in Irish secondary schools. Facilitated and documented by the Irish children’s charity Barnardos in 2017, the AGPI’s Quality Assurance Framework (QAF), is designed to benefit all Guardianship Providers in Ireland, by developing a shared understanding of what constitutes a quality service, through the provision of an explicit language for quality which has been designed to enhance partnership working; by providing a benchmark for member organisations to assess the quality of service provision and by supporting member organisations to identify areas of improvement and inform planning.

Legislation - Children First Act 2015 and General Data Protection Regulation 2018

In Ireland any organisation providing a service for young people and their parents should work within the national legislative and policy context which includes, but is not limited to, the Children First Act 2015 and the forthcoming GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation May 2018). However, until now, there has been no organisation in charge of inspecting Secondary School Guardianship Providers to ensure they are fulfilling their requirements under Irish law. AGPI, in collaboration with Barnardos, has devised a robust inspection tool for Guardianship Providers, to assist them in adhering to best practice guidelines and Irish legislation, when providing guardianship services to young people and their parents.